There’s an old sales adage that says, “If you can make ’em laugh, you can make ’em buy.” The reason it’s old and the reason it’s been around so long is that it’s true.

Humor and laughter are key ingredients to building relationships and gaining customers.

So what’s the challenge? People don’t know how or when to use humor and most salespeople are afraid to use it because they think it will make them look unprofessional.

Let me dispel those myths and misguided thoughts with the following 5 reasons to inject more humor into your sales technique and your life.

1. Humor is the final frontier. It’s easy to learn about your product; it’s easy to learn about your customer; it’s easy to learn the science of selling. It’s hard to learn the science of humor and even harder to learn how to place that humor into your sales presentation.

The beauty of humor is that it relaxes people and creates a more open atmosphere, which leads to friendship, respect and compatibility. I refer to it as the final frontier because it’s the last element you put into your selling process. You put it in after you’ve mastered understanding your product, understanding your customers and their businesses, and understanding the science of selling. If you use humor and don’t understand the other three elements, you will be a clown who makes no sales.

2. Using humor shows the highest form of language mastery. If you’ve ever heard someone say, “Boy, that guy’s just naturally funny,” he’s probably an extremely intelligent person. Take note: Not all prospects require or desire humor, and you can tell who they are right away. They never laugh at anything. The best thing to do in those cases is to eliminate humor from your sales presentation and pray the prospect is not price shopping. From my experience, I can tell you the prospect probably is price shopping. People who “just want to get down to brass tacks” are usually people who “just want to get down to brass prices.”

3. The best humor combines professional, friendly and funny. If your entire sales talk is professional, you are likely to lose to someone whose sales talk is 50 percent professional and 50 percent friendly and funny combined. Friendly and funny are a thousand times more engaging than professional. If you doubt that, take a look at any late night TV host. Are they professional or funny? How much are they making? How much are you making? I don’t mean to compare your sales presentation to a David Letterman monologue, but I am going to compare the way you think you have to present versus the way your prospective buyer would like you to present.

4. When it comes to humor, know the difference between a joke and a story. Most salespeople reduce themselves to joke tellers or joke re-tellers. Telling jokes is dangerous and usually not very funny. First of all, most jokes are demeaning to one person or another. Second, jokes sound contrived and give the impression you’re trying too hard. Worst yet, if the customer has heard the joke before, it makes you look like a complete idiot. Stories are genuine, they often employ self-effacing humor and they’re engaging. When you tell a story, it often makes the prospect think of another story, and he or she will engage you back and forth in storytelling. It builds rapport and helps the prospect relate to your product or service. Facts and figures are forgotten. Stories are remembered and repeated.

5. Laughter is universal. Using humor in sales, however, is almost never taught because most sales training and most sales trainers aren’t funny. If I’m in a selling situation against you, and I’m funny and you’re professional, or I’m funny and you’re not funny, I will win the sale more often. If you don’t consider yourself a funny person, study humor and learn how to use it as a sales advantage.

Using humor effectively takes practice, and you have to be willing to fail. But don’t give up. Mastering humor takes time, intelligence, trial and error, and practice. It also takes the order.

Free GitBit: Want a list of things you can do to be more humorous? It’s yours by going to www.Gitomer.com. Register if you’re a first-time user and enter the word HUMOR in the GitBit box.

President of Charlotte, N.C.-based Buy Gitomer, Jeffrey Gitomer gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com.